Jack Campbell: Courageous

She indicated her display. “Do you want to avoid bombarding the primary planet, then?”

Geary almost choked. After a century of trading atrocities with the Syndics, even Alliance officers could be remarkably cold-blooded. “Yes,” he managed to get out. “If at all possible.”

“Very well,” Desjani agreed. “The military facilities seem to be primarily orbital, so if we have to take them out, it won’t require surface bombardment.”

“That’s convenient,” Geary agreed dryly. He settled back, trying to relax nerves that had been on edge as the fleet entered Baldur.

“Syndic combatants identified orbiting the third planet,” Dauntless ’s combat watch-stander announced as if on cue. “An additional Syndic combatant has been located in spacedock orbiting the fourth planet.”

Geary, hoping he hadn’t too obviously jerked to attention at the announcement, zoomed his display in on the enemy ships. Anything that hadn’t been seen until now had to be pretty small. They were. “Three obsolete nickel corvettes and an even older light cruiser.” The cruiser was older than him, too, Geary reflected. And here we both are still fighting a war far beyond the time either of us ever planned on. At least I’m in better physical shape than that ancient cruiser probably is.

“Five and a half light-hours distant,” Desjani confirmed. “Orbiting between the third and fourth planets. They’ll see us in roughly five more hours.” She smiled. “They obviously weren’t expecting us.”

Geary smiled back, feeling relieved. Every time the fleet left jump, he had to worry about encountering a Syndic ambush. The only way to avoid that was to keep the Syndic leadership guessing as to where the fleet would be next. The lack of even picket warships posted near Baldur’s jump points meant the Syndics had no idea the Alliance fleet would be showing up here, or at least hadn’t figured it out as a possible destination in time to get a courier ship to this star system. “Odds are they’ll run, then. If they don’t run, I want an analysis of what they might be concerned with protecting.”

“Yes, sir,” Desjani acknowledged, gesturing to one of her watch-standers. “Is there something else, sir?”

“What?” Geary realized he was staring tensely at the display and deliberately relaxed his breathing again. “No.”

But Desjani had figured out his worry. “The fleet seems to be holding formation.”

“Yes.” Seems to be. If any of the outermost combatants took it into their minds to charge toward the Syndic warships, Dauntless wouldn’t see it for almost half a minute. But everyone appeared to be holding formation. “Maybe what I’m trying to show the officers in this fleet about discipline in battle is really getting through to everyone.” That was a cheerful thought.

Rione promptly threw a bucket of reality over him. “Or maybe they’re holding formation because the Syndic combatants are five and a half light-hours distant. Even at full acceleration, an attempted intercept would take quite a while.”

Desjani gave Rione another cool look as she had the navigation system run the intercept. “If the Syndics held course and didn’t run, an intercept would require about twenty-five hours at maximum acceleration and deceleration,” she confirmed reluctantly. “But I assure you, Madam Co-President, that before Captain Geary assumed command, we would still have had ships already launching themselves on that charge.”

Rione smiled thinly and nodded. “I have no reason to doubt your assessment, Captain Desjani.”

“Thank you, Madam Co-President.”

“No, thank you , Captain.”

Geary took a moment to be grateful that his officers didn’t wear ceremonial swords. From the look in Desjani’s eyes, Rione should be grateful for that as well. “All right,” he announced out loud to distract the two women. “To all appearances, this star system is totally unprepared for our arrival. That means we should have a chance to intimidate them into avoiding doing anything stupid.” Desjani nodded immediately, followed a noticeable few seconds later by Rione. “Captain Desjani, please broadcast to all Syndic installations that any actions taken to hinder or attack this fleet will be met with overwhelming force.”

“Yes, sir. With your name on the end?”

“Yeah.” Geary had never aspired to have a name that would frighten people, but apparently more than a few Syndics also believed in the legendary Alliance hero, Black Jack.

Victoria Rione spoke again. “Your messages are usually longer.”

Geary shrugged. “I’m trying something different. They’ll have no idea what our intentions are, which will keep them guessing and worried. Maybe enough so that they’ll sit tight and not try to mess with us.” Not that I’m planning on doing anything but getting to the next jump point. He studied the display, seeing the course leading to the jump point for Wendaya as a long arc passing above the plane of the Baldur Star System. The fleet wouldn’t have to go anywhere near any Syndic installations, and the Syndics didn’t have anything in-system that could be used to go after the fleet.

It all looked so perfect that Geary found himself double-checking, unwilling to trust a situation without an overt threat.

But nothing looked wrong. He finally relaxed again, pondering his formation, then calling up the individual ship status readouts. Very little information could be exchanged in jump space, but ever since the fleet had arrived here, automatic reports had been flowing in to Dauntless with information on the current state of every ship. If Geary had been so inclined, he could’ve found out exactly how many sailors on any one particular ship had head colds at the moment. He had known commanders who had concentrated on things like that, somehow expecting the business of actually running the fleet to happen on its own while they dug ever deeper into trivial details.

What he was seeing wasn’t trivial, though. Geary couldn’t prevent a gasp of exasperation as he looked at the primary status readouts, drawing glances from the others on the bridge. “Logistics,” he explained very briefly to Desjani.

She nodded. “ Dauntless is getting below recommended fuel cell reserves, too.”

“I knew that. I didn’t appreciate how much of the rest of the fleet was also at or below those levels.” Geary shook his head as he checked another report. “And expendable munitions. We used a lot of mines at Sancere and Ilion, and specter missile stockpiles are low on most ships.” He leaned back again, taking a long, calming breath. “Thank the living stars for the auxiliaries. Without them along to manufacture new fuel cells and weaponry, this fleet would have been trapped and helpless a few star systems back.”

That simplified his plans for getting through Baldur Star System. Keep the fleet close together, keep fuel expenditures to a minimum, avoid using weapons, and give the auxiliaries plenty of time to replenish the fuel and munitions supplies on the warships.

Geary’s feeling of satisfaction vanished as he checked the status of the four fast fleet auxiliaries, which weren’t fast except in the imaginations of whoever had chosen that name for them. Difficult to protect and slow as they were, the self-propelled manufacturing facilities called auxiliaries were vital to getting this fleet home. As long as they could keep the fleet supplied, that is. “Why am I seeing critical shortage reports on the auxiliaries?” Geary wondered out loud. “We looted every raw material we could possibly use back at Sancere. The auxiliaries’ supply bunkers were supposed to have been topped off.”

Desjani frowned and checked the figures herself. “According to these reports, all of the auxiliaries will have to stop manufacturing fuel cells and munitions soon due to shortages of critical materials. That doesn’t make sense. The auxiliaries certainly loaded a lot of something at Sancere.”